6.) Ammianus Macellinus says also, "The last of the Syrias is Palestine, a country of considerable extent, abounding in clean and well-cultivated land, and containing some fine cities, none of which yields to the other; but, as it were, being on a parallel, are rivals."-- xiv.

8.

See also the historian Josephus, Hist.
vi.1.Procopius of Caeserea, who lived in the sixth century, says that Chosroes, king of Persia, had a great desire to make himself master of Palestine, on account of its extraordinary fertility, its opulence, and the great number of its inhabitants.

The Saracens thought the same, and were afraid that Omar.

when he went to Jerusalem, charmed with the fertility of the soil and the purity of the air, would never return to Medina.